Tag: winter tires

Winter might be taking a nap, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t going to come. It’s coming whether we like it or not! Winter is the toughest season you and your car can face. We can prepare your vehicle for the ice, snow and freezing temperatures.

Winter Tires

All four wheels need them regardless of whether it’s a front-wheel, rear-wheel, all-wheel, or four-wheel-drive. All-season tires are not winter tires. Winter tires reduce the number of collisions by almost 20 per cent. Enough said.

Winter or summer, your car tires are the only point of contact that your vehicle has with the road, they need to be in good condition at all times to ensure your safety. Inspect your tires regularly for wear and any damage to avoid any sudden problems. Check your tire pressure monthly and before every long trip.

Driving with incorrect tire pressure can affect your car’s handling and braking, particularly in wet conditions, and can seriously compromise your safety. Driving on severely under inflated tires can cause heat build up and eventually a premature tire failure. Read more about winter tires…

Brake

You car brake system should be in top working condition at all times. Have your brakes checked by a professional regularly? Your and others life depend on it. At winter time is more important than ever, in the case of slippery conditions like icy snow covered roads, the effectiveness of your traction control and ABS system depends on the quality of your braking system. Have it inspected and tested by a professional for ultimate safety in any weather and or road conditions. Bring your car in for ABS and brake system service.

Battery Test

If your car is five years old or older have your battery tested for strength and performance to prevent possible no start condition in foul weather. It might not necessarily need a new battery, but having it tested can save a lot of headache. To prevent breakdown and keep you on the road safely, we use Midtronincs GR8-1200 Electrical System Tester – Analyzer to check, test your battery and your automobile electrical system. Read more about battery testing…

Fluids

While the use of long-life engine coolant has increased, it still should be checked for strength and condition every fall.

Washer fluid level is an easy check and a spare bottle should be in your trunk all year long and especially in the winter.

The engine oil in your car has to go thru temperature extremes. Therefore it’s very important to have your engines lifeline the engine oil up to the highest possible standards, by performing your oil service on time, especially on today’s modern high tech engines, during winter operation thanks to fuel contamination from cold starts and water contamination from condensation. If you getting close to oil change, start off the season right with a fresh oil and filter change. While we perform your oil change we also check your brakes, tires and most fluid levels for your added safety.

Windshield wipers consumable items. Doesn’t matter what brand name they are, they due for replacement at around 18 months of use or sooner. Most wiper blades can freeze, even dedicated winter wiper blades can get stuck to the windshield in extreme conditions.

When we inspect your car’s wiper blade, we lubricate the hinges to prevent water and ice formation at the base.

Locks & Doors

Before the Canadian deep freeze hits, we lubricate door locks, latches, and hinges and treat the door and window seals. We use silicone lubricating compound (Made in Germany). By spraying the door and window weather seals, they will be less likely to freeze you out on a cold winter morning.

Floor Mats

Never stack floor mats on top of one another or use a mat that’s too thick. The risk of jamming your accelerator pedal to the floor is real and the results can be catastrophic. Winter floor mats are great for reducing salt stains on the carpeting.

You should remove mats from time to time throughout the winter to dry them out indoors. Moisture on floor mats is the cause of hard frost appearing on the inside of windshields and door glasses.

Full Tank of Gas

Drive with full tank of gas at winter is a good idea. Never know when you stuck in the snow, so you can keep your car and yourself warm if you have enough gas in your gas tank.

Some people put something heavy, like a 50 kg concrete block in their car’s trunk to get better traction, but if you get in a collision, consider the damage a 50 kg piece of concrete will do. The best weight to carry to improve traction is fuel in the gas tank. This brings the mass lower to the ground for improved stability and reduces the effect of winter water contamination in the tank.

But if you still want to put something heavy in your car trunk put there a bag of Kitty litter? Yes, kitty litter!

It can help provide better traction for rear wheel drive vehicles, because of the weight, and if you get stuck in the snow a little bit of kitty litter sprinkled under the tires can help you get traction and out of the snow.

We are slowly drifting into fall which brings us closer to winter weather sooner or later.

This is the time to get our cars ready, possibly doing some standard maintenance like oil and filter change. It should be part of an annual maintenance strategy, clogged, saturated filters will effect, hinder engine performance and could cause hard start rough running at times and increased gas mileage as well.

Make sure the brakes are in great shape. Often overlooked the fact that the traction or stability control system uses the brakes to be able to bring a slipping sliding car under control.

The cooling system should be also inspected for proper freeze point and the quality of the coolant. The system should be also pressure tested to ensure reliable heating and cooling when required. The system pressure is 29.4 psi or 2 bar in most BMW, Mercedes Benz and Porsche automobiles. The cooling heating system level and performance is essential for proper operation especially in or before winter.

Does the heating system, thermostat works well? What about the condition of drive belts, clamps, and hoses? Are they ready for our Canadian winter?

Battery test’s print out at left.

The battery; Have your car battery checked lately? The battery should be also inspected and tested for reliable starting and idling.

Battery performance suffer with age and in cold temperatures, so system performance including the charging system should be checked out as well, by our state of the art starting- charging and battery system analyzer.

Our heavy duty charging and battery – electrical system tester analyzer also records the alternator performance for maximum reliability, with an actual system performance print out as a proof of entire system test.

This complete electrical system performance test result essentially provides a peace of mind in the winter.

The last but not list your car’s tires. New or fresh all season tires are a bare minimum for foul weather, winter tires are the perfect solution which should be the natural choice for this part of the world.

We are happy to help to get your BMW, Mercedes or Porsche prepared for the coming season and wish you safe motoring in the winter weather.

Choosing the right tire for the car is one of the most important purchase you will ever make. There is a new phenomenon which is manufacturer endorsed tires, this is a relatively new thing and mostly European manufacturers started doing it.

The question remains, could you or should you use manufacturer endorsed tiresonly on your BMW or Mercedes? The short answer is no, the manufacturer endorsed tires are a safe bet if you want to follow their guide lines but logic says it is physically impossible to test every single tire on every model on every make, so for the very reason I recommend to consult a licensed experienced technician with decades of tire know how to select the best tire for your fine automobile.

You should never base your tire purchase on price or impulse only. Be cautious with large chains whom only have a wasted interest to move their stock tires and operate at volume sales at very thin margins.

The rule of thumb as always, you get what you pay for. Same goes for advice, online information also should be treated with caution since most people rating tires are by no means experts on the field of tire evaluation.

We hope this will help to have a more informed choice. Please visit or call us for further details. Telephone: 905.795.0419.

We are going to deal with a seasonal weather change soon, which will require some serious adjustment in driving dynamics and economics.

Yes, you guessed it right, we are talking about winter driving and cold frozen roads occasionally snow or ice covered by sudden weather conditions. We highly recommend to properly prepare your BMW, Mercedes and Porsche for this season, which should include of checking the tires and replacing them with appropriate winter tires.

Furthermore you should get your import automobile’s cooling system check out for any leaks or defective worn hoses. It’s extremely inconvenient to break down in the middle of a snow storm or in any winter conditions. It is always inconvenient to break down needless to say in winter, perhaps it is possibly the worst for obvious reasons.

We also recommend to check your car’s service records for the age of your vehicles coolant, suffice to say it should be replaced in or after five years. Chemical degradation is inevitable in a closed high temperature mobile system with multiple dissimilar metals and components.

We recommend a cooling system service which is rather inexpensive in every five years to keep your heating and cooling system in top shape.

The vehicles braking system should be also inspected closely (it’s a perfect time when you switch to winter tires) most folks don’t realize your traction or stability control works by applying your brakes at an accelerated rate to help you keep your vehicle under control. We naturally recommend a complete per-seasonal inspection and last but not least checking and – or replacing your car’s wiper blades, if needed for a clean clear view.

We wish you safe and comfortable motoring in the coming winter season.

The great tire debate about winter tires or all weather tires. May be all season tires? How should you choose? They all black and round what’s the difference?

I get this questions quiet often from my clients. What do you think of the Nokian all weather tires? Most people would like to avoid to install winter tires if they could. The Nokian could do the job on my BMW, Mercedes and or Porsche? Theoretically it could (Than it begs the question why did you invest in a high tech high performance car?) practically it will not suffice, your car’s manufacturer of the above brands spend hundreds of millions of dollars (Euros) to make your car handle behave like intended a performance oriented finely honed machine.

Yokohama iceGuard Winter Tire

Winter Traction: Interlocking and adaptive 3D sipes work in tandem to enhance stability and grip on icy surfaces.

Wet Traction: Dual-action shoulder grooves are straight at the bottom to evacuate water.

Resistance to Wear: A high-density reinforced compound allows for a more stable tread block, providing longer more even wear.

What could be the difference between all weather and winter tires?

The easy way to make a comparison, like your seasonal shoes, you definitely don’t want to wonder outside in flip flops in the snow and ice. How about running shoes? They would be your all weather tire equivalent so this is why we wear winter boots to keep you on your feet securely in any inclement weather.

Your winter tires, like your winter boots are purpose built for the cold slippery road and severe conditions.

We hope this helps to make your tire decision somewhat easier in the coming winter.

Drive safely, think before you drive and have a safe and secure driving winter season from all of us at Techmax, your tire experts.

The season is upon us again to have our cars in order before the snow flies. The question is what should we do as the mornings are getting colder? How can we keep our cars in great shape as we heading towards to the winter?

How should you prepare a European import car for driving under Canadian winter conditions?

We can advise you what work your car will need in the near future as you can carry on with your daily business without interruptions.

Try to build a relationship with your chosen technician, it should be just as important as is your doctor or dentist and the others whom there to make sure you can carry on with your daily life.

The most important is to check your tires and if you do have winters (need less to say everyone should have them in Ontario) have them inspected, pressures checked and brakes suspension and the heating /cooling system perform at their best.

Remember your car is like a fine orchestra, when all is well and every system performs great the whole thing is a pleasure to live with. It’s a cliche to say, all works like a well oiled machinery when you turn the key comes alive and it’s ready for your command.

Probably you alredy noticed tire manufacturer’s advertising, the term “all-weather” tires. Are they different from “all-season” tires?

For me the term “all weather” tire sounded like the tire manufacturers had come up a new catchy way of marketing all season radial tires for winter driving.

However all weather tires are more than all season tires. All weather tires are a little bit both, like hybrid… They suited for winter driving in a relatively mild winter, but okay for warmer weather driving too.

The question is; Is our winter, or your winter is mild? It depends on where you live in, and it is a decision that you need to make when you buy your winter or all-weather tires.

In basic terms, an all-weather tire has passed the Transport Canada tests for a winter tire. Unlike winter only tires, all-weather tires can be driven all-year round.

Are the better than winter tires?

All weather tires and winter tire are not the same, they are better for winter driving than all season tires, but not that good as winter tires.

The big difference is between all-weather tires and winter tires is, that all-weather tires meet the established standard for winter use, as indicated by the snow flake or mountain icon on the sidewalls. Plus unlike winter tires, they can be used in spring, summer and fall driving too.

Several major tire companies are producing all weather tires, including Goodyear, Hankook. Nokian, Vredestein and Yokohama. But these same companies produce true winter tires that perform better at low temperatures and in any winter driving conditions.

The worst choice you can make is to drive on all season radial tires at winter time. Transport Canada tests show all season tires take twice as long to stop in winter time, than winter tire.

Tests conducted by the Ontario Ministry of Transportation showed a subcompact car needs 11.6 meters less distance to stop with winter tires compared to all-season tire. It says a minivan traveling at the same 50 km/h on the same five cm of compacted snow, in below zero temperature, required 12.8 meters more distance to stop on all-season tires compared to winters.

When the temperature drops to or below the freezing point, regardless of road conditions, dedicated winter tires are your best bet. Add a winter storm with freezing rain, snow, ice, slush or other winter conditions and their advantages become even more obvious. If you drive in winter time, winter tires are should not be an area to be satisfied with compromise.